July 2005

Weekend

July 10, 2005

The great thing about publishing rumors is that if I publish them they rarely come true. CNN and a few other outlets picked up the story late Friday afternoon. Friday morning I skipped my normal podcast listening on the way to work in favor of hearing NPR's coverage of Renquhist's retirement. It was not to be. Even their story on O'Conner didn't mention the rumor floating around.

This weekend was spent on much more satisfying projects. Things like assembling a pile of old concrete blocks into a garbage shelter. I've driven home for the last time to see the trash cans blowing about. They're nicely contained. This afternoon bought real progress like completing the cross braces for the fence which we should be able to install next weekend and replacing the world's worst lawn sprinkler installation. It's another project that will usurp hours of daylight next weekend as well. For some reason the nearly-square rectangle of lawn in the house was the victim of installers who didn't completely grasp geometry. On one edge three sprinklers provide nice coverage of the lawn. On the other side, where there is more sun, there are only two sprinklers and a perpetual brownish thin spot. It doesn't help matters that fluid dynamics plays a role as well. The two lone sprinklers trying to do the work of three were installed on an extra 50-foot run of 1/2-inch line instead of directly on the 3/4-inch feed line.

In other ranch news it seems the owners of the vicious dogs next door (the ones that attack our horses) will be getting new neighbors. These neighbors will be raising goats. Likely they will also need to study Nevada's law about dogs harassing livestock.

Rehnquist to retire

July 7, 2005

Weblogs are alive tonight with the rumor that Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist will announce his retirement at news conference tomorrow morning at 10 ET. There are a few places are whispering that it could also be that Justice John Paul Stevens plans to retire. Notably the sites suggesting Stevens resignation are largely circular references to other sites that point back at them.

The sentiment that this might lead to a rash of people moving to Oregon based on the states (soon to be illegal if the rumors are true) assisted suicide law has been expressed elsewhere. It seems to me the more measured reaction would be to study up on Canadian immigration policies.

A decade ago

July 4, 2005

Ten years ago today I wrote the first AmericaNet.Com website for a company in Colorado. It remains today as a shadow of its former self and most pages have lost the copyright notice I wrote for "Walter the bird" which read thus: "Now look, the boss worked hard to put all this stuff here. You are welcome to come visit often, and please tell your friends we are here, but don't be a bird brain and rip this stuff off. I am the only bird brain around here and I'd like to keep it that way so the boss doesn't fire me."

Obviously not great prose but a line I've always liked as the attitude matched that of the small black-and-white bird.

A9, Perfect 10 and the Supreme Court

July 4, 2005

Cnet has an article about the publisher of Perfect 10 suing Amazon over its A9 search engine.

The suit and another against Google by the publisher claims the operators of these search engines are infringing on Perfect 10's copyright by including images in their search results. To my non-legally educated mind, the suits don't seem to be such a huge deal. There are plenty of opportunities for Perfect 10 to protect their copyright. If as the article implies the suit has to do with Google indexing other sites that are hosting the infringing images then separate action against those sites will solve two problems at once. It seems from this seat on the sideline like a company looking for a way to squeeze money from the search engines that are making money.

The article notes in the last paragraph "The situation is more dire after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that companies can be held legally liable for copyright piracy that takes place on their online networks." Which leads me to say um, not really. Cnet needs to get their facts straight here. The Supreme Court ruled that there was enough evidence that the cases against Grokster and Streamcast should not have been granted summary judgement. They went on to describe a lot of actions that look like the companies were inducing users to violate copyrights of third parties. However, they also by way of example, suggested filters might be one way a company could help to show they are not liable for inducing infringement. It so happens that robots.txt is just one such filtering mechanism that Google, A9 and others support.

Fourth of July advice

July 3, 2005

Just in time for the 4th of July. Bill Schneider has some advice over at New West Network about how to navigate a boat ramp. The column has both some good hints for first-timers and reminds the experienced boat-rampers among us to be kind.

Of course the best advice might be finding a time other than a busy holiday weekend for the first trip to the boat ramp.

Camelot

July 3, 2005


Yesterday brought the opportunity to take in a couple of shows at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. The production the festival has mounted of Camelot is simply stunning. Three strong leads, Brian Vaughn as King Arthur, Christine Williams as Queen Guenevere and Michael Sharon as Lancelot, form the core of this excellent cast.

Finding the right place to start commenting on this production is hard. The staging, cast, choreography, and music were all outstanding. For example the joust scene with most of the cast on stage brings together the excellent talent, music choreography and staging into one crystalline scene. With each pass of the off-stage combatants the company moves in such fluid unison as to completely sell the idea they are indeed watching an event instead of looking into the audience.

Since I first visited the festival in the early 1980's I've seen dozens of plays and a handful of musicals produced by this excellent company. Camelot, however, ranks in the top few productions this elite company has put together.

The festival has been producing the works of Shakespeare since its 1962 inaugural season. In 1989 the festival opened the Randal L. Jones theater for presenting woks from the "Shakespeares of other lands." With the addition of this second theater the company expanded its repertoire to include annual musical productions.

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